"Hmm," said Jon. "I'm not sure. What does it do?"
"It transforms people!" replied Wendi.
"I know it transforms people, but what are the details? Does it work like the magic stone? Exactly what can it change? What are its limits?"
"Hmm," said Wendi. "We're down to..." She paused. "31 wishes. How does 30 sound?"
"Seems fair to me," said Jon.
"Okay. I wish Jon would tell me what the limits of the transformation machine are!"
Jon gasped. "Huh? I don't know what it can do, I can't tell you that..." He blinked twice and then explained, while Wendi seemed ready to giggle. "It changes the body. It can't change clothes, or makeup. It can't change personality, though some instincts come with a new form, and a form without a human brain can't think like a human. It doesn't affect reality like the wishing stone. The transform can be given a duration, and shorthand phrases can be preprogrammed. All transforms must be spoken by Wendi or by anyone with DeMorrell's unaltered male voice." A second later, Jon said, "HEY!"
Wendi laughed. "Jon, I imagine you've made me answer questions a lot when I was a rock. Well, I did it to you."
"But how could you do that?" wondered Jon. "I didn't know any of that stuff."
"I wished for you to tell me, so you did. Nothing says you needed to know it first."
"Well, now we know how it works," said Karyn, "I'm not sure what to do. I wouldn't kill him. But he needs to be punished."
"How about turning him into a tree?" asked Wendi. "Or a stone? A regular one, not a wishing one."
"That's like killing him."
"But you can change him back."
"You could shoot him and bring him to life, that'd still be killing him."
"If there was a way to magically make him have sex with someone..." said Jon.
"That's rape," said Karyn. "Do we really want to take that kind of revenge?"
It seemed like it took forever for them to decide on a transformation, but it didn't take more than a few minutes. There was still plenty of sped-up time left.
"This is Wendi," said Wendi.
The machine's voice rung out, even though they were speeded up; the earlier wish had been generous about what it meant to "act normally". "Voice print recognized."
"Change Jon into a guy."
Machinery whirred and the red spotlight turned, to face Jon, and became green. Within a few seconds, Jon grew taller, his breasts shrank, and his whole body shape flowed upwards into a masculine form. Then the spotlight turned red again and moved back to its original direction.
"Change DeMorrell into a woman six months pregnant."
The light turned green again and shone down on the frozen man, whose body reshaped. The breasts grew out to D-cups, and his belly expanded, while his naked arms grew less hairy and thinner. DeMorrell's erection, frozen like the rest of him, contracted, down to normal, and past that to nonexistence, his sex organs reshaping into those of a woman. The stubble of his beard shimmered and faded. When the light turned red again, on the bed was an expectant mother in her 20's with short hair and a face that could be that of DeMorrell's sister.
"Now, let's make that 30 wishes into 29," said Wendi. She spoke the wish that they had discussed. "I wish that everyone else would think this woman is Lucy DeMorrell, but they don't believe she's Lucius, and they know where Lucius's stuff is and won't let her have or use it."
"I don't know," said Karyn. "He just has to leave the wish range and get into his bank account. He could hire assassins to kill us or something."
"Yeah," said Jon, "but he won't be hiring any assassins, because there's one last thing we need to wish for..."
"Right," said Wendi. "Your grandpa! My first owner. He's a much better choice to run this place." She held up the staff and prepared to speak a wish....
